And smalishah's avatar is the most classy one by far Jan certainly echoes the sentiments of CW

Yeah we don't crap in the first world; most of us would actually have no idea what that was emanating from Ajmal's backside. Why isn't it roses and rainbows like what happens here? PEWS's retort to Ganeshran on Daemon's picture depicting Ajmal's excreta

Okay let me try to make it a bit simpler for everyone to make sense of the stats. I have below the 13 new ball bowlers who top the list of those who played during this period. Donald is the only one from outside the list in the poll table which is an error clearly for his entire career coincided with Sachins.

My take is that one can not take just one stat to make this choice. It has to be a combination. This is to say that the economy rate alone can not be the criteria for the limited overs version, wicket taking is equally important. So here goes . . .

1. Wickets per match
This is an important criteria in both Test and odi formats. The top three bowlers in this list will take, on average 5.5 wickets every match. This is a massive boost for any side wanting to be the dominant force around the cricketing world. Unfortunately, it is not often used by fans. Longevity is responsible for some of the aggregate records but if the "per Test" performance suffers inordinately then it is not necessarily a good thing be it bowling or batting.

2. Matches per 4 for
This like centuries is what often identifies match defining performances. Bowlers who take five fors and four fors more regularly are most likely to help sides win more often. Of course a player could play a couple of hundred more games and have more such hauls - hence Matches per four for . . .

This is a vital criteria for strike bowlers. The ones the captain relies upon to get wickets quickly and in clusters as well. This criteria is even more important for the quicker bowlers. The greatest of fast bowlers have had lower strike rates. This invariably comes at the cost of a few more runs but if they help dismiss batsmen who could go on to get big runs, these bowlers are worth their weight in gold. The criteria is much more important in the longer version of the game but is not to be underestimated in odis since the best way to check run rates is to take wickets and, where possible, bundle out sides in less than their full quota of overs.

The criteria most used by fans for the shorter formats for deciding their best sides. But it can be exaggerated as a virtue. Wicket taking ability has to be combined with reasonable economy rates for the strike bowlers. The very tight bowlers are more to be used in tandem with the strike bowlers. A team of the tightest bowlers in history who were not great strike bowlers might end up second best more often than not.

Bowler Avg
Finally the criteria most used for bowling particularly in the shorter format. It is really a combination of the economy rate and the strike rate and is thus a happy medium to use for all bowling particularly if seen alongwith wickets per match
Bond 20.9
Donald 21.8
McGrath 22.0
Lee 23.4
Shoaib 23.5
Wasim 23.6
Waqar 23.7
Pollock 24.3
Ntini 24.5
Ambrose 26.0
Steyn 28.2
Bishop 29.6
Walsh 31.2

As can be seen I have divided the ranks for each criteria in clusters headed by the best with the least impressive (relatively) at the bottom.

I am sure these figures will come as some surprise to those who have already made up their minds. For me, it confirms my opinion that Bond and Donald are two of the finest odi bowlers of this era and Pollock is probably the most under-rated.

PS : I suspect some people may be leaving out Bond for not having played enough but just look at Steyn. He has played so few he fails to qualify for the 75 game criteria set in the thread opener.

Bowling stats in ODIs are so hard to make proper conclusions about. Even compared to Test stats, which are flawed at the best of times, number-cruching for the pyjama cricket leaves a lot to be desired.

The value of a wicket and a maiden changes in Test cricket depending on the match situation, but those are relatively rare circumstances, and a bowler's primary job is always to take wickets. Not so in one-dayers, where the changes happen at the same time in every match.

I wish we could see strike rates and economy rates for each period of the innings.

These bowlers will have two jobs - take wickets at the top of the innings and save runs at the death. Batsmen will be naturally more keen to play themselves in and set up a platform against the new ball, and in the last half a dozen overs wickets are bound to fall in pursuit of quick runs.

If a bowler - particularly these bowlers - takes 0/14 off his first 5 overs, we can't look at that economy of 2.8 and applaud him because the oppo were probably just seeing him off. And now the change bowlers have to try and manufacture a wicket with the field spread. If he takes 4/40 off his final 5 overs, who cares about the 4-for? He's conceded eight runs an over while a few lower-order players hole out off him.

If the spells were the other way around, it's an amazing performance. Both cases go down as 4-54, an average scorebook entry, but it could be brilliant and it could be awful.

This is all before we get into the likes of trying to work out which ODIs actually matter. In Tests you say quite confidently that almost every match had the best team the selectors thought available playing and the fans cared about it. Maybe if you're a harsher man than me you'll skim over performances against minnow teams or early tours that didn't at the time count as Tests, but in both cases you're making a minor adjustment.

Not so in one-dayers. The schedules are full of matches were first team players are rested. There are post-Test matches at the end of a long tour where the drive and contest just isn't present. There are matches where potential Test targets are picked to see how they go in internationals despite the difference in format, and worst of all there are matches that include Jade Dernbach.

You could focus on World Cup games, as the only games where everyone involved genuinely gives a ****, but then half your games are against Canada or Namibia. We're losing matches at a rate of knots here and we're only left with a fraction of the data we started with.

So it's my view that, while ODI stats are a okay guideline for identifying the top echelon of players - such as everyone mentioned in the OP plus Donald - past that the specifics just aren't there. I don't think there's any real difference in a few points of strike rate or a few tenths of a run per over, not least because those two things are often cancelled out anyway.

I guess the only way to really form the best opinion on the finest ODI players is just to watch as much ODI cricket as there is, all over the world, all the time.